Zarkon

Hey all! Thank you for the likes! Just a quick update. My entire family has been sick and we had to deal with a leak in our shower that was coming down upon our kitchen ceiling. Yuck. So not too much time for modeling unfortunately. But I have a small update today. I have started planking the hull below the wales. Before I started, I read the instructions quite a few times. It's a lot to take in at once. @Chuck recommended in his instructions to read the book "Planking the Build-Up Ship Model" by Jim Roberts. I ordered this book from Model Shipways and it didn't take too long to arrive. This book, like what Chuck said, is highly detailed and is a great resource for planking. I read through a few chapters and noticed that some pics in this book, are also in the instructions of the USF Confederacy! Chuck's instructions does a good job summarizing what is in this book. Which is a lot of information. I did create the jig written in the instructions with the supplied laser cut curved batten. Here is a pic of it after i bent 3 wood strips. (Though I have already used 2 of then hah!) It's definitely helpful for edge bending 3 strips at a time. I was able to finish 1 row and started the next. Here are some pics of my progress. As you can see, it's just the beginning of the process. I will start to make steady progress soon. Once I complete 10 rows, I will then start the other side's planking. Thanks all! Jeff

Hey all! Finally finished tree nailing the hull! That sure took a while to do. It took a total of 6327 tree nails. Whew! I completed this step by re-staining and varnishing the hull. Now, this is the first time I've tried to both tree nail and varnish a hull. I can see spots where I can clean it up and bit; but I learned quite a lot doing this. Doing 3 inches at a time was key to not get overloaded with this step. Here are the pics of the hull as she stands now. You might have to zoom in to really see the tree nails. I won't be tree nailing below the wales. I might take a day or two off before starting to plank the hull. Thanks all! Jeff

Congratulations! You have done an excellent job! I think it looks cool that you stopped at the main mast cap. It gives a unique look since not many modelers stop there. Here is looking forward to your next build! Cheers! Jeff

Thanks Bug! Like the instructions say, focusing on 3" segments really helps me get through this process. I hope she will look better with these tree nails! I also can see why this is one of your favorite kits. It has been very fun so far and the instructions are excellent. Ill check out your joint build log! Also, if you decide to make a build log of her later this year, I would be interested in following along! Jeff

Hey all! I know it's been quite a while between my last post, but I've been super busy with my Confederacy build and currently in the middle of tree nailing her. But I finally was able to give my Cheerful the quality time she deserves. First, I have to admit, I measured twice and cut once with making my strips, but I guess my eyes were tricking me! I thought i was milling 3/32" strips, but instead, I was making slightly thinner than 1/16". This was too thin. I had to create a new jig to measure out 3/32" and mill more strips at the correct width. It always hurts knowing I milled the wrong sized strips. I then had to remove all the strips I had glued on her. Believe me, that wasnt a.... Cheerful activity. Yes. Bad dad joke. To remove the strips, I used Bob's CA unglue and that worked remarkably well. Though I had to still be very careful removing the whale strips. This was disheartening, but it's best to fix things now than being in a much worse place later. I have since glued on both rows of the first layer of the wales. I then glued on the molding strip right below most gunports. This molding strip needs to be 1/64" below each gunport except for the first port. The best way to figure out where to place the molding at the bow is studying the plans. To make the 1/64" between the gunport and strip, I created a small jig to measure out that width. I would hook this over the gunport and push the molding strip up against it. At least this way, it will help to keep a more even and consistent width between the molding strip and the gunports. Soon, I will continue planking the gap between the molding strip and the wales. Thanks all! Jeff

Hey all! I know it's been a while. I got sick a few times since December. I swear I caught everything that was going around. Anyway, it's taken a long time to tree nail! I'm almost done with the starboard side of her. I am counting every tree nail I make, so if you guys want to guess how many tree nails it took me for the starboard side, be my guest! I'll leave a few pics as to my progress. As you can see, I only have a small portion at the stern to finish. I know it looks like a mess right now. But I'll clean it up and stain/varnish this side before moving to the other side. I will have to touch up the black painted whales a little bit too. Anyway, this is a short update and I'll continue tree nailing! Thanks for following along! Jeff

Nicely done! It's coming along very well! Jeff

Hey all! So I have decided to tree nail the hull from the wales upward. But only the hull section that's not painted black. This is a pretty slow process and I'm trying to refine how im doing it. Like the instructions say, I first started on the side with the exposed hull section. I tried to line up the tree nails with the bulkheads as best I could. Here are some pics of my process. I first drill the holes. I place a piece of tape down to match where the ribs are, then I place a square next to the tape to try and make sure it's straight. I manually drill one column at a time until I have completed 3" of tree nails. It's hard to see the drill holes unless I have lower light. I then lightly sand the holes with 400 grit sandpaper just to clean up the tops from loose wood. I don't have enough an awl, so instead, I took a T pin to each of the drilled holes lightly touching just to make sure the holes are round. Afterwards, it looks like this. Then comes the messy part. I fill in each hole with natural wood filler (the kind recommended in the instructions) I then sanded it down to remove the excess. I hope you can see some of it. I have to sand more of the excess off. Sometimes it's really hard to tell if I sanded enough, so I have to take a very lightly damp cloth and rub the hull for the tree nails to appear. I had to do that with the pic above, but i can tell it needs more sanding. I do think it will look really nice once it's done. This will be a very labor intensive timely process. I will try to give update as to how its going in a few days. Wish me luck! Jeff

Happy 2025 everyone! I finally felt better enough this week to make some progress. I have completed the other side wales and decided to put the molding on like the other side. I already described how I complete the wales and molding in previous posts, so I'll just post some pics of both sides finished. Oh, I have to note. I 3D printed a new holder for the ship while she is upside-down. I made the design in Blender after measuring the ship and where I wanted the supports to go. I made 4 support points. Each connection joint is a different size so that the holder only fits in 1 way. It took quite a while to print as each piece must be able to be printed within the size limitations of my 3D printer. Whew! Finally those steps are completed! I would like to start tree nailing, but I'll wait until tomorrow to start. Thanks! Jeff

@Wawona59 Hi John! Thank you for following my build log! I apologize for not replying sooner. I caught pretty much everything since before Christmas and I'm finally starting to feel better. Like you, I had my Confederacy kit sitting away for years before I felt mostly comfortable to start her. It was fun just looking at the box with anticipation. Haha! Thanks for following and I hope you and everyone have a great 2025! Jeff

@wernerweiss Thank you for your thoughts. I do appreciate the critiques, especially from someone who has finished The Confederacy! By the way, you have a great build log of her and you did a fantastic job. Your Confederacy is excellent. Jeff

@wernerweiss Hello! I wanted to let you know that I have not glued the cap rails on yet. Gluing the cap rails is on page 118-119 in the instructions and I'm on page 42. I wanted to make sure that the molding strips would be at the correct placement, so I cut out a cap rail and a volute laser cut piece and test fitted them to the model. I also placed (not glued) the 1/16" strip ontop of the waist as well to check the lower molding strip. This next pic shows the cap rail in place along with the waist piece. This pic is where I have overlapped the volute piece over the top of the cap rail and ontop of the molding piece I glued on earlier. It seems to line up with the molding very well! I think I have the molding pieces glued into the correct position on the model. On page 39 of the manual, it states that finishing the wales/molding/painting is optional at this point of the build if the builder wants a break from planking. I sure wanted a break from planking! Haha! So that's why I continued with the optional steps before continuing to plank the hull. Thanks for your feedback! Jeff

@wernerweiss Hey! Thanks for the feedback! I did check the instructions too, and it does specify to add the molding first next to the waist. I did check the laser cut cap rails to see how far back they are cut to match up with the molding pieces. The instructions say, to place the molding pieces correctly, place a 1/16" strip ontop of the waist and make sure the molding strip sits evenly with it. I also checked the instruction photos and it also shows the molding strips sit slightly back, not up to the edge of the waist. I think you have a good idea of adding the channels along with the molding strip to make sure it has a nice curve. Also doing so won't make you cut out the molding strips where the channels will go. I might do this with the other side, but i haven't decided yet. I can be a little clumsy and if I have channels sticking out from the hull, I might accidentally knock them off! Haha! Thanks for your input! Jeff

Hey all! Happy holidays and new year! I added the molding strips to one side of the hull and wanted to share some pics. I tried my best with it. I did stain them first before gluing them on. Now into the other side to repeat the entire process! Thanks all for reading! Jeff

Hey guys! It took me a little bit of time to decide what to do next. I decided to do things are little out of order. First, I placed painters tape where the lower molding strip will go and made sure it was a good even curve. Then I marked it with a pencil. I then took the tape off and re positioned it slightly below that line. I hope the pic comes out ok. The reason I placed it below that line, is so that the black paint will overlap the molding strip so it will look even. I then proceeded to fill any gaps ( there were 2 very small gaps) and sanded it down smooth. This was done for the planks above the tape. After this was complete, I pained the planks black above the painters tape. During this process, the wood strips arrived from Model Expo! So I knew I was going to complete the main wales next. There was a slight problem though. I accidentally wrote down the wrong number of strips. The main wales are 4 rows of 2 planks each. So that's 8 planks total. But I like 2 extra strips just in case. My issue was, I wrote down 10 strips when I needed at minimum 16 strips. Yup. My bad. But Model Expo was quick to take my order and deliver the 10 strips free of charge. So that was super nice of them. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the other strips I need to finish the main wales. I'll figure it out. Anyway, I then started the main wales on one side of the ship. I'm the first to admit, I'm not that great with putting painters tape down and not having some paint run through the tape. So before I placed the top main wale plank, I rounded the top edge then pained mostly just the top edges black. This should hopefully make for a much cleaner look than placing the top wale strake on first. This allowed me to not have to worry about painting the top edge and accidentally painting the black strake. I continued down the 4 plank rows. Since these will be pained, I applied some filler to smooth out any small gaps or ubeaven surfaces. As i was planking the wales I noticed my lower counter tree nails weren't great. What I mean is, I did not sand enough of the wood filler off the counter so it looks sloppy. So I sanded the entire lower counter again to get off the extra wood filler. Once all this was completed, I taped up the side for painting the main wales. I then proceeded to pain the wales. This was the result. That was satisfying to see it with the wales pained. I then decided to stain and varnish both sides of the ship. This will include the channel wales, Blake strake, and the lower counter again. I wanted to do both sides because it seemed like the right thing to do. But before doing this step, I had to get the molding strips ready. I followed the directions in the instructions using the provided molding scraper. This is how it turned out. This third picture was important because to make a good clean run of the molding, the bottom most requires 2 molding strips. You have to be careful when picking and sanding both strips. Some of the molding strips were wider than the others. So you have to choose 2 which had the same width or it will look off when glued on. Then last night, I stained and varnished both the ship and the molding pieces. I stained/varnished the molding pieces before placing them on the model. Here is what it looks like varnished. It's currently drying so I can't work on it tonight. The last thing I will need to do is add the molding strips. Whew! That was a lot. Let me know what you guys think! Thanks! Jeff